The city’s tennis fans have always taken some time to warm up to the Aircel Chennai Open. The latter half has always elicited a better turnout than the first, mostly due to the extra sprinkling of stardust.
So when the eighth seed Gilles Muller and previous edition’s finalist Edouard Roger-Vasselin started proceedings on the centre court on day one it was no different. And for close to a set and a half even the tennis seemed to mimic the crowd, until Muller stepped it up and with his guile and craft fully on display won his opener 6-7(11), 6-1, 7-6(3).
“It feels great,” said Muller after the match. “It would have been a tough one to lose since it was the first match of the year.”
For those used to watching laboriously long baseline rallies and constant ball-pounding this was not the match. With both players displaying a penchant for getting closer to the net, the points were mostly short.
The only phase which appeared to be a stretch was the first set tie-breaker — a drawn-out 24-point affair — which Roger-Vasselin won.
“I was pretty passive in the first set,” said Muller. “Then I got more aggressive in the next two sets. For me it is crucial to find ways to finish off points at the net as I can’t rally with these guys from the baseline.”
In the second set, Muller took off. It was wrapped up in less than half an hour even as the other two tie-break sets spanned close to an hour each. The Frenchman tried to regroup early in the third and even had an opening with Muller down 0-30 on his serve.
However, some excellent serving — which he did consistently through the match and served 29 aces — bailed Muller out.
“Edouard is a great returner. I had to mix it up. I sliced, employed the kick serve, hit some flat. I had to give him different balls to play,” said Muller.
Then, a break to 4-3 gave Roger-Vasselin another opportunity, but he squandered that too, courtesy two remarkable returns from Muller — the twitch returns with minimal racquet swing — and two unforced errors on his part.
From thereon, the set was easily had, on a tie-break to three points.
“This is not a good start to the year,” said Roger-Vasselin. “Last year I reached the final and today I am out in the first round. I must admit the tactic of giving up the second set so that I could be ready for the third did not work.”
In the day’s other results, seventh-seeded Spaniard Marcel Granollers retired in the third set against Andreas Haider-Maurer due to a knee injury with him trailing 3-6, 7-6(6), 2-0.
In doubles, Chinese Taipei’s Yen-Hsun Lu and Britain’s Jonathan Marray defeated the Indian wild card pair of Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan and Sriram Balaji 6-3, 4-6, 10-6.
The results (first round):
Singles: Gilles Muller (Lux) bt Edouard Roger-Vasselin (Fra) 6-7(11), 6-1, 7-6(3); Andreas Haider-Maurer (Aut) bt Marcel Granollers (Esp) 3-6, 7-6 (6), 2-0 (retd).
Doubles: Yen-Hsun Lu (Tpe) & Jonathan Marray (Gbr) bt Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan Sriram Balaji (Ind) 6-3, 4-6, 10-6.
